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Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

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Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#71

Post by gus_massa »

tgb wrote: post #21

The author states they were banned for linking to their article [1] challenging Flat Earther's to take the "flat Earth route" from Johannes Burg to Sydney and beat the commercial great-circle flight. But what exactly would the "flat Earth" route be? Do they have a consistent claim about what the layout of the Earth is? It should depend on the Flat Earth model someone is using. (Though I suspect they'd all agree that…

That's a nice mathematical questions. My guess is that there are a few models that make minimal sense, and this experiment can refute them. (Ignoring wind currents, that are important and probably make the return flight a few hours longer/shorter.)

In an unrestricted case, you can always select a map where that any real geodesic is a line in your flat map. I guess to prove that the surface is not flat, you need to measure the more distances, like measuring the four sides of a quadrilateral and then the two diagonal. (I think it is not possible using geodesics, without measuring one distance or an angle or a surface.)

The nice part of Gaussian curvature is that you can measure it in the surface, without a model of the 3D word that is "around" it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_curvature

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#72

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

pcmaffey wrote: post #55
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that calling mask skeptics morons or any other forms of ungentleness are likely to help. I can't think of any instances where large minorities have been convinced of their wrongs by mean talk from the majority. What would actually help is a commencement of sensible policy at the top. Another thing that would help is an enforcement scheme with teeth. It is incorrect to pass laws about important topics th…

Shame has been used to police human behavior throughout history. See: all religions.

I do not dispute this. I think shame works in small communities, but not over the internet.

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#73

Post by gus_massa »

pcmaffey wrote: post #55
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that calling mask skeptics morons or any other forms of ungentleness are likely to help. I can't think of any instances where large minorities have been convinced of their wrongs by mean talk from the majority. What would actually help is a commencement of sensible policy at the top. Another thing that would help is an enforcement scheme with teeth. It is incorrect to pass laws about important topics th…

Shame has been used to police human behavior throughout history. See: all religions.

It is usually shame with the implicit threat of ostracism with the implicit threat of burning the witch at the stake.

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#74

Post by jbob2000 »

krapp wrote: post #49
_1qd4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're in strange times if you can't call a flat-earther an idiot and a moron. What's next, I can't call a Nazi a piece of shit? There are objectively correct times to use insults, this is definitely one of them.

> We're in strange times if you can't call a flat-earther an idiot and a moron. What's next, I can't call a Nazi a piece of shit? The context here is someone being banned from a platform for violating their requirement that posters be polite on their platform. This isn't a "sign of the times," nor does it conflate to some greater societal or cultural shift, or have any implications on mores, values or free speech. No…

A platform isn’t some magical place with no basis in society, they don’t exist in some walled-off world where the real world is alien. They are still part of the general culture.

It’s a fault of Quora to have dogmatic rules like this, there are justifications for impoliteness.

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#75

Post by krapp »

jbob2000 wrote: post #74
krapp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're in strange times if you can't call a flat-earther an idiot and a moron. What's next, I can't call a Nazi a piece of shit? The context here is someone being banned from a platform for violating their requirement that posters be polite on their platform. This isn't a "sign of the times," nor does it conflate to some greater societal or cultural shift, or have any implications on mores, values or free speech. No…

A platform isn’t some magical place with no basis in society, they don’t exist in some walled-off world where the real world is alien. They are still part of the general culture. It’s a fault of Quora to have dogmatic rules like this, there are justifications for impoliteness.

It's not a fault of theirs, it's a business decision. They want to project an image of authoritativeness and professionalism, and rules of polite candor accomplish that.

It's no different than Hacker News requiring civility or Stack Overflow requiring on-topic, non general discussion. Not every platform does, or should, have the purpose of allowing free flowing discussion.

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#76

Post by dang »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #9
jeroenhd wrote: post #3

He didn't get banned for saying the earth was not flat, he was banned for calling people morons and idiots. I'm as much opposed to flat earthers as any person here, but calling people with questionable beliefs idiots and morons only serves to make you feel better about yourself. You can explain the ridiculousness of flat earth conspiracy without resorting to insults and you won't get banned as easily.

> He didn't get banned for saying the earth was flat, he was banned for calling people morons and idiots. No he didn't? > Long story short, I called a few people idiots and a few others morons. I got a warning about that, acknowledged it, and stopped referring to the people who believe the earth is flat as idiots and morons. > After my warning, I was an excellent Quora user. I was courteous, even to people who comple…

I can tell you from years of experience that people make up all kinds of stories about why they were banned. Often the stories are very convincing to third parties. That's not surprising, because they're designed to be.

The thing to check is whether there are links to the original posts, which would allow readers to make up their own minds. If the "$site banned me for $outrageous-can-you-believe-it-reason" story is linkless, odds are that salient details have been omitted.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#77

Post by maxlybbert »

IgorPartola wrote: post #35
maxlybbert wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been years, so I know I’ll get the details wrong, but I vaguely remember a dating website that had an entry survey to help match people to whoever had the best compatibility score. But, for whatever reason, they got far more women applicants than men, and started turning particular women away. And some other dating site tried to advertise to those women (not good enough for ___? Try us instead!).

What dating website managed to get more women than men? Isn’t that like the unachievable holy grail of dating websites?

I want to say it was eHarmony, but I’m really not sure.

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#78

Post by maxlybbert »

maxlybbert wrote: post #77
IgorPartola wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What dating website managed to get more women than men? Isn’t that like the unachievable holy grail of dating websites?

I want to say it was eHarmony, but I’m really not sure.

Looking at https://www.datingsitesreviews.com/article.php?story=Why-did... , it may not have been a question of too many women, but just a question of no willingness to accept people from outside the target market.

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#79

Post by TulliusCicero »

dang wrote: post #76
TulliusCicero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He didn't get banned for saying the earth was flat, he was banned for calling people morons and idiots. No he didn't? > Long story short, I called a few people idiots and a few others morons. I got a warning about that, acknowledged it, and stopped referring to the people who believe the earth is flat as idiots and morons. > After my warning, I was an excellent Quora user. I was courteous, even to people who comple…

I can tell you from years of experience that people make up all kinds of stories about why they were banned. Often the stories are very convincing to third parties. That's not surprising, because they're designed to be. The thing to check is whether there are links to the original posts, which would allow readers to make up their own minds. If the "$site banned me for $outrageous-can-you-believe-it-reason" story is l…

That's a plausible explanation, but so is "enough people reported me that I got autobanned".

For an equivalent, there are some subreddits that auto remove/lock threads if they get reported enough.

Re: Quora Bans Me for Saying the Earth Isn’t Flat

#80

Post by xbmcuser »

jeroenhd wrote: post #37
scarface74 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are idiots. Why tip toe around and try to spare someone’s feelings who express statements that are provably false and should be known by someone who has enough of an education to read? It’s not like a difference of opinion between supply side and demand side economics.

Nobody will listen to you if you call people morons, no matter how dumb they act. If you want to convince people not to believe these conspiracy theories, you need to come across as intelligent. You can call their theories moronic and idiotic (with some proper scientific backup), but when you call people that, you only reduce your credibility.

True but taking the high road has resulted in science denying idiots to come to power in the US. I am not sure taking the high road is beneficial start calling them out on there idiocy stop giving them space for spreading their idiocy.
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